I think another reason people are quick to judge the camera is that it is so easy to pick up and use, people (me included) don't read the manual or practice with it. My action shots get better all of the time with more camera use. I recently tried some macro shots and was disappointed because I couldn't get the autofocus to "work." One quick check in the manual made me realize that I should be at the widest setting and then move in with the lens. Wow, I felt like an idiot. Someone quick to judge could have been all over the forums or back at the store returning the camera.

It is simple enough to use as a point-and-shoot, but you won't get the full capability of the camera until you've had time to work with it.

Yes, Steve, I fully agree with you on the prejudgement thing and the lack of willingness to study a bit, "then" go out and play with this camera. I just got back from an hour of shooting sunset light on a tiny marsh near my place because I've been reading some nature material that suggests sunrise and sunset excursions to get great color saturation and other wonderful gifts from light. Of course I knew this to be true but wasn't clear on how absolutely vital it is. Froze my buns off because I rushed out in a tee-shirt but didn't really even notice the cold until just before quitting.

Of course it would be nice to have a shutter of F22 or more for things like landscape but I can live without it, especially when I consider what I'm paying for here. If I really need that sort of depth of field then I'll dig out the SLR stuff but make a day of it rather than an hour of it. And that's one of the greatest things about this camera, it competes with the big guns in zoom but you don't need a U-haul to carry it around.

My Sigma 50-500 lens weighs 4 pounds, and that's without the camera body, tripod, lens hood, filters, etc. When I went out with the FZ10 tonight I was shooting at similar zoom distances, unheard beforehand for under a thousand dollars, and IS to boot. And the more expensive f 2.8 to 4 IS 500+mm zoom lenses weigh much more than that Sigma of mine, so in the DSLR world I'm "light" with the 50-500!

That FZ10 allows me to play in the same ball park as the big guns and gives me a ride that I always remember. The ride's a bit noisier than the DSLR ride but Neat Image is a nice little inexpensive muffler that keeps this camera within the legal noise limits, I'd say.

Thanks for commenting, Steve.

A few hand held samples of tonight's toying with evening light below, all reduced substantially in size to 500 pixels for quick download:

FZ10 catches evening reflections on a window shield:

FZ10 stops down to get the silhouette and sunset:

Simple sunset capture, but nice capture of color values from FZ10:

I believe that this camera has the capacity to do loads of different things, from action to landscape to macro to nature. Not too many cameras are able to do it all in a credible fashion.

Big Zoom (hand held)

April 22nd: FZ10 with no zoom (look for the birds, they are all at the far end of this pond):

FZ10 zoomed in full (hand held, 36x digital):

April 22nd: this one was taken, hand held, at low light sundown, full digital 36x zoom, through branches (look close at the blurred red branch in foreground). It's a bit soft but still looks reasonably real and not all waxy and contrived. I normally don't use digital zoom with this camera but I just couldn't get close enough with the 12x optical. So the digital "does" sometimes come in handy when a person wants at least something reasonably credible. As well, this was shot at the close of my little sundown outing and my fingers were bitter cold. I'm continuously amazed at the IS on this camera.

I hear people complaining about "noise" on the FZ10. If there is enough outdoor light and one remains at ISO 50, then the camera produces wonderful relatively noiseless shots. As light gets less, then I'd suggest that the photographer simply get more "artful" with shots and not be bothered by having to use a bit of creativity and processing. Here's a very low light "painterly" and "impressionist" rendition of some wildflowers: